Death and Dying
by Somber Secrets
Summary: One-shot  Team 7 was long dead, but now they are dying. One sided NaruSaku and SasuSaku


He could feel the metallic liquid slowly dripping down his face as the crimson of his precious eye faded away into a deep dark obsidian. He blinked slowly as the colors began to fade and more life dribbled down his face and pooled on the ground below his neck.

The loud calls and what he recognized as Shizune's voice began to fade as he felt his body being picked up by a young man in a green spandex suit and what he knew to be orange, not grey, leg warmers.

It was Rock Lee and not Maito Gai that was heaving him onto the stretcher. He knew this with absolute certainty, after all, he had seen one of the last of his generation get eviscerated nearly a month ago right before his very eyes.

The crimson bled back into his eye and the tomoe spun for just a second. He convulsed in pain, one second of his memories was enough to destroy any average man. Why wouldn't it just destroy him?

The crimson turned back to black and he stopped moving.

Shizune's voice was calling to him and he must have reacted for more orders were screamed. The words were lost on him as he closed both of his eyes. "Kakashi! Hatake Kakashi! Hang on!"

The stretcher moved and seemed to collide with that of another medical team's for there were more yells before his body was jostled and the movement continued. The movement was so familiar and yet so distant, it had been many years since his best friend had been able to move like his protégé now did.

It was a steady rhythm, like the beat of a drum. He could hear the pounding of feet against the ruined and scarred earth, but he could not hear the words that were being screamed around him.

A heavy weight sat upon his chest.

And Kakashi wondered, 'Am I dying? Am I finally… _finally_ dying?'

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**Death and Dying**

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"Naruto!"

A cough, the pooling of blood… and a weak smile. "S-Sakura-chan…"

Sakura hit the ground hard, her knees skidding on the rock as she halted beside Naruto in a whirlwind of dust and debris. Her hands began to glow as she pressed her fingertips into his chest and hissed, air escaping between her teeth.

She tried her hardest to ignore the chuckling man lying not ten meters away from them. Tears pooled on her eyelids as blue eyes gazed up at her with all of the love in the world. Love she knew she could never return. "Sakura-chan…"

"Stop talking you bloody idiot!" Sakura screamed as her hands began to glow even brighter. The chuckling intensified and blood ran out of the side of her mouth.

"What are you doing Sakura-chan?" Naruto murmured as he blinked slowly at the crying girl positioned above him. Blood pooled beneath his back and he knew that it wasn't all his own.

Sakura took a moment to wipe the blood away from her face before she grinned at him hopelessly, "I'm trying to save your life, idiot." She coughed and blood splattered onto his shredded orange jacket. Tears continued to pool on her eyelashes and run down her face. This time she used the inside of her elbow to wipe at the dripping blood.

Naruto grinned weakly. He could feel her shaking hands, he could feel her determination in not looking up and in not choosing the love of her life and saving the betrayer instead. "I love you Sakura-chan."

"O-oh, Naruto… I…"

"She still loves me dobe."

Sakura clenched her fists as his deep, dark and twisted voice echoed on the inside of her skull. The voice she loved so much, the voice that was always, always taunting her with his lovely and sick words. _"Thank you."_ The cold seeped into her bones just like that night she had been left on the stone bench and she resisted the urge to shiver.

Sakura gasped deeply and tried not to sob as her green chakra continued to flow into the body of her dearest friend. Just a friend… only ever a friend.

"I know."

"N-Naruto…"

"I know Sakura-chan, I have always known. Even in this very moment…"

"I don't…"

"You do…"

"You do!" Sasuke's voice pierced and echoed as he chuckled harshly. Sakura's head finally snapped up to look at his ruined and mangled body as he stared at her with empty eyes. His eyes had been empty before he had been blind.

"Shut up you bastard, shut up!" Sakura cried as she resisted the urge to pounce at him and rip out his heart with her own hands. It would have been the best pay back for him breaking hers.

"Sakura-chan, Sakura-chan, look at me. Ignore the teme, ignore him," Naruto murmured as he reached up with one hand to caress Sakura on the cheek. He smiled at her softly as her tears landed on his nose, his cheeks, and his forehead. "Sakura-chan, stop that. You can't save me now."

Sakura shook her head, "No, I won't stop." Her hands began to clench as she willed for control.

"She wants to die with me," Sasuke cackled as a grin spread upon his blood stained lips. "You and I both know dobe that if she hadn't tried to save you now, that she would have been able to save herself. She wants to die with me."

Sakura scrunched her nose as her hands shook, "No."

"Don't lie to me Sakura."

"NO!"

"Sakura-chan…"

"I jumped in front of your first chidori because I wanted to save Naruto, I only wanted to save Naruto…" Sakura hissed as she glared at the blind man who only continued to laugh in her expense. Her arms shook.

Sasuke laughed and turned his head to the sky, "Too bad I have always had a second shot then. But you already knew that, didn't you Sakura?"

Sakura shot up from her position beside Naruto, dived over his body and stumbled towards Sasuke.

Before she could leap the two steps to get to him, the wound in her chest brought her crashing down to earth. Sakura, with her face in the dirt, began to sob as her fingers flexed, reaching towards Sasuke's throat. The other hand tried to stave off the bleeding by grappling desperately at her chest, the broken pieces of her heart. "I hate you, I hate you!"

Sasuke chuckled again and turned towards her. His eyelids blinked and blood ran out of his mouth, "You love me."

It began to burn… Naruto's eyes widened as his body began to spasm. Pain, there was only pain everywhere. Sasuke laughed as he saw his old teammate thrash on the ground as blood came flying towards him from Naruto's flailing arms.

Naruto hadn't known that his wound was hurting so much. The shock had staved off the initial pain and Sakura had appeared only moments later. Naruto gasped as a cry ripped out of his mouth. He clawed at his chest desperately, anything to make the burning go away.

His blue eyes widened. Sakura hadn't been trying to save him.

Sakura continued to sob as she pulled herself off the ground again. She kept her eyes low, away from the man with the ebony hair as she crawled back to Naruto's side. With one bloody hand she swiftly latched onto both of Naruto's wrists and pinned them to the ground above his head with a soft thump and the flying of pebbles.

Naruto cried out in pain. Sakura plunged her other hand into his chest and her fingers once again glowed green.

Naruto's movements died and he gasped for air. "S-Sakura-chan…"

"S-Sorry," Sakura murmured as she used her grip on Naruto's wrists as leverage while she collapsed down onto his chest. She winced and smiled at him. Naruto didn't feel a thing. "I'm so sorry. He's right, Sasuke-kun was right."

"Sakura-chan…"

"I could have saved myself if I didn't go to you Naruto…"

Naruto's eyes softened, "I know…"

"But it's not because I love him… not because I still love him," Sakura sniffled as she dug her nose into the thick collar of his torn jacket, "I just knew… knew that I wouldn't be able to stand to hear you suffer. I can't ever hear you suffer Naruto. I'm so sorry."

Sasuke cackled again and Naruto realized that it was the Uchiha's way of expressing his pain. The man would not cry; he knew that no one would save him. Naruto breathed in deeply through his nose and concentrated hard in feeling Sakura's chest move against his own. How he wished it had been for different reasons. How he wished his feelings were returned. But now he craved the movement because he craved for both of their lives.

"We are all going to die, aren't we Sakura-chan."

"We were already dead," Sasuke muttered.

"We're dying Naruto," Sakura murmured as she continued to flood the remainder of her chakra into Naruto's and her own nervous systems.

"This sucks," Naruto managed to chuckle before he coughed, "Teme, this is all your fault."

"You can still smile dobe?"

"I can always smile. I can smile because we were once alive. That life that we once lived…"

"That worthless life died a long time ago…"

"Is a life that will never be forgotten. You're still my brother teme, you will always be."

Sasuke cackled. His joints creaked as he lifted his head off the ground and dragged himself towards the blond boy. "You… you were never my brother."

"Amazing how you forget your life when you're dead."

Sasuke's continued to inch towards his old teammates, dragging the lower half of his body behind him. "She still loves me. The idiot loves me."

"I don't deny it."

"Pathetic."

"I don't think so."

"You love her."

"I love you, Sakura," Naruto murmured. The fingers around his wrists relaxed and the hand on his chest unclenched. He brought his free wrist to her hair and ran her pink strands between his fingers. She murmured and dug her nose deeper into his neck. "I love you Sakura. I don't care that you still love the teme, I don't care about that at all. You didn't forget when we died, we didn't forget."

Lips brushed against Naruto's collarbone and the movement on his chest died. Naruto's sobs filled the air as Sasuke's hand reached up to wrench Sakura's body away from Naruto's. The pink strands flitted from his fingers as her body hit the floor.

With all his remaining strength Sasuke had only thrown Sakura to the side, had only managed to toss her upper half down towards Naruto's legs. Naruto used his last remaining effort and her remaining chakra in his system to turn so he could see both Sasuke and Sakura's face. "She's gone teme."

The pain blossomed in Naruto's chest, and tears ran down his cheeks. He stared into the blank eyes of his brother and grinned, "I'll see you on the other side teme."

"You and I won't be going to the same place."

"We'll see."

The pain disappeared and so did the blue. Sasuke stared at the empty bodies before him as the pain continued to crawl through his whole entire being, numbing him as it went.

Sasuke collapsed onto his back as the clouds let loose and rain splattered on his face. He wondered if Naruto and Sakura were already crying for him from where ever they had went.

He tried to stop himself from wondering if he would see them again, wherever they were, as his eyes drifted close.

**...**

Kakashi's eyes flashed open as lightning rocketed through the sky. His pupils scanned the area quickly before he heaved himself up onto his forearms. More lightning flashed in the sky and played with his shadow against the wall.

He was lying in a medical tent deep within safe territory, totally and absolutely _alive_.

Kakashi blinked as he looked outside the open tent flap where people were busy milling about in the after math of the war. Kakashi didn't want to look outside for long… he didn't want to look because he knew that there was too high of a chance to see, see blond and pink strands peaking out from beneath white blankets.

Their bodies would be carried off as heroes, but his team wouldn't be there anymore.

Kakashi grunted as he ran his fingers over his two normal eyes, one slightly darker than the other.

He had forgotten for just a second that his team had disappeared years ago, now all he had lost were his most precious people.

Kakashi looked back up to the ceiling and threw his arms over his broken eyes letting his head hit the futon with a thump. Not even his precious gift had stayed behind with him.

A long time ago he had believed he was dying… he had lost everyone that he had ever cared about and had believed that no pain could be worse, that dying was the ultimate suffering of the soul.

Now he had lost three more.

Dark heavy sobs echoed through the tent, ripping out of an old warrior for the last time. The thunder mingled with the desperate cries as lightning illuminated the tears staining his mask.

Thunder echoed once again and was followed by a deathly silence.

Kakashi lifted his arms away from his face to reveal empty eyes. His chest stopped heaving as slow even breaths escaped from his nose.

"Hatake Kakashi, I can see that you've woken up. How are you doing?"

He turned his head to face Shizune. It had been obvious that she had been crying just moments before.

The medic continued to tap her clipboard, "I'm sorry Kakashi, I didn't want to be the one to tell you but…" Shizune looked up gasped as she saw the look upon his face.

Dying hadn't been so bad, now that he knew what it felt like to be dead.

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><p>So... that was a spur of the moment piece and I happen to like it quite a bit. I've always believed that Team 7 would somehow end up like this, sadly... yep.<p>

Different from everything else I've written considering that uh...romance (or requited romance) isn't the main theme of the whole entire piece. Shortest thing I've written in a while and I think its okay that way.

Please tell me what you think!


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